


This is a Blossom of the Brain

by middlemarch



Series: Daffodil Universe [5]
Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, F/M, Gardens & Gardening, Gen, Medicine, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 21:30:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6583276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A discussion in the garden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is a Blossom of the Brain

It was done. Jed flung the pen down with more ferocity than surely that patient instrument deserved; it had served him without fail the past two hours as he labored at his writing. In his youth, the room would have been scattered with foolscap, a veritable blizzard of waste, but age and the War had taught him frugality. There were one or two sheets, so heavily inked and cross-hatched as to be virtually illegible, with the creases his fist had delivered, waiting to be burned. His desk retained its general aura of disarray, medical texts piled, here a fortress, here splayed, a conquered country. He kept no daguerreotype in a tarnished frame but there was a glass jar with a heron’s twilit feather, a spiny conker on the verge of crumbling from his Parisian period, and the traveling carriage clock his father had given him a long time ago, when the sun still rose and set on Jed.

He had been shut up in his room since the forenoon. The only surgery of the day Hale had claimed and as it appeared uncomplicated, Jed didn’t suffer overmuch at leaving the soldier to Hale’s devices. Nurse Hastings had broken the day with her Lady of the Lamp persona firmly in place and Jed foresaw little pleasure to be had in any encounters; it was best to leave her to sweep through the wards from time to time, exorcising her ghosts. His patients were either healing or their suffering was at a neutral pitch, requiring little of his attention. He’d had no other reason to delay or avoid his task, though he had tried mightily—straightening his room, bellowing to Matron Brannan for fresh linens and whatever else he could think of, even checking that his dress uniform was not in need of mending. Finally, though, he could not resist the desk and chair, pen innocent on the paper, any longer. His retreat had become a prison after a few hours; he wished for a comrade on the other side of the wall, so they could escape this Bastille! He’d known he must persevere and so he had. Now, there was an end to it though he must consider his next step carefully.

He stood and stretched. The day had started warm and was now definitively hot. Jed wondered how the Yankees, not brought up to Southern summers, managed. He had noticed the chaplain sometimes looked a bit grey on days like today and was less eager for a rousing game of chess. He had not known Mary to complain about anything personal; she seemed to take all indignities visited upon her person in stride but there were times he saw she simply stood, her skirts coming to rest around her, the effort of her continuing vitality more apparent than it should be. Jed decided he would wash, find a fresh linen shirt and vest, and make his way through the wards. He supposed he would listen for the sound of Mary’s voice or the wake of her work and seek her out. He could probably persuade her to sit with him on the shaded veranda with something cool, switchel or perhaps lemonade, if he asked first to review the medicine inventory or the patient rosters. These hot afternoons, the staff and patients alike descended into a state of somnolence and he found Mary then more amenable to a soft look or a conversation that roved further afield from medicine. 

Temporarily refreshed but rapidly re-acclimating to the press of the air, Jed walked through the hospital. Thank God, Mary and Samuel had persisted and gotten the windows open; the whole place was designed around them and was rendered tolerable, if not completely comfortable, with the passage of air, woven like ribbons, through the halls and high ceilings. Jed wandered as if aimless while his senses sought any hint of Mary’s presence. She did not appear to be within the hospital, though he’d spotted the chaplain, one more man asleep among the many, and Miss Green, less troubled than the others, moving sedately. He saw that Miss Green never strayed too far from the chaplain’s radius, delineating her emotions with the geometry of her movements. 

The veranda beckoned, white-washed and dimmed. Beyond, the gardens were an unrelenting, vibrant green except for the pools of shadow, cinched to the bases of the trees. Except for the one dark figure, kneeling in a patch of turned soil, face obscured by a large straw hat. Jed sighed. Of course, Mary would be working in the full sun with only a hat to shade her while everyone else dozed or frittered away a dull afternoon. He would need to convince her to rest or risk sunstroke. As he walked closer, he was struck by an intense recollection of Eliza working in the garden, wearing just such a hat. She would never have been out in the full afternoon sun as Mary was; even with the hat’s wide brim, she would be risking a tan or freckles and she would never jeopardize her complexion so. Eliza had gardened decoratively, her investment in creating a charming backdrop to set off her personal attractions. Her hat would have been trimmed with long green ribbons, to echo the sash at her narrow waist and her demure eyes. Early in their marriage, the first few months an extended courtship of sorts, she would have listened for him; anticipating his arrival, she would have posed herself prettily with flowers or a copper watering can. Mary worked on, hunched over the soil, her dark blue skirts spread around her, worn brown boots peeping out. He saw a basket next to her with twists of paper and some seedlings wrapped in damp burlap; she was utterly intent upon her task.

“Molly?” he called out as he approached.

“Yes, Jedediah?” He had reached her side now and smelled the fresh fragrance of the rich earth. The sun cast heavy shadows while the heat shimmered in the air.

The memory of Eliza had been more powerful than he would have predicted. The wide straw brim, like a rough halo, framed Mary’s face, but she was not the cool ivory cameo he was expecting. Her cheeks were flushed bright red and curls had escaped everywhere, tendrils damp on her forehead and stuck to the slender curve of her neck. There was a streak of dirt across a cheekbone where she had tried to brush away errant strands. She had removed whatever lace collar she wore and unbuttoned the top of her indigo bodice, so that her white throat was visible, limned with sweat. He knew she had no thought to be provocative which redoubled his response to her; desire for her had taken him, brutal in its intensity, as the men described the fiercest battles. 

He had never before felt this degree of want for a woman coupled with the tenderest affection. It was a most curious sensation, the small part of his brain not consumed by her reflected. His deep and friendly regard for her, his need to protect and nurture her, tempered his joyful lust. His love was able to balance any scale. She was in no true danger that he would accede to his passionate inclinations-- the urge to hold her, kiss her mouth open with his own, lick the sweat from her throat and take its scent in his beard, to press her against himself, those round breasts filling his hands first, then the lush weight of her buttock, the flare of her hip made to cradle him. From all of this, and every other myriad yearning he had for her, she was rendered secure by her fundamental dearness to him. He was relieved that the strength of his attachment allowed him to experience this most comprehensive desire, for mutual ravishment, without guilt or shame. There was only the sense that the time was not now, postponed to an uncertain future he must accept, despite the clamor of his flesh seeking hers, his mouth, his hands, his cock all longing for the solace of her welcoming body. The completeness of his affection for her was sufficient for him to make an alchemical transmutation from hunger to sustenance. 

He let himself dwell on her mind, her skeptical humor and quick responses, the solemn Germanic musing she sometimes fell into, a counterpoint to her passionate convictions about justice, the balm of loving-kindness she withheld from no one. He thought of the purity with which she had held him and rocked him in the worst of the withdrawal; it had felt only her arms, her belly to his back, her cool face against his neck, kept him from being rent apart. How she had taken his agony into herself and given him back some measure of integrity, her voice in his ear singing the hymn, “See, gentle patience smiles on pain.” Those dark nights, she had been the promise of morning. He was not entirely forsaken, remained valuable, even if he could not discern the reason for it—Mary did. 

Now, she was looking up at him with her bright dark eyes and he saw she was willing to play. He had found, after the first few weeks when all he saw was the prim Baroness, that Mary was often willing to banter and spar as long as no one was edging towards disaster, medically, ethically or legally. The duller the wards were, the sharper her wit, like the dash of vinegar in the switchel. He could often tell now when she was ready for diversion, but not what direction she would go; he thought she would have done well in the salons in Paris.

“I have called for Molly, but I think I had better asked for Hebe or Pomona,” he sallied.

“Well, I think Iris can surely be struck from the list,” she replied, gesturing at her dark blue dress, the homespun pinafore a drab overlap.

“What havoc are you wreaking on Mrs. Green’s garden? I think she may not forgive this transgression—more than the hotel, the garden is usually the mistress’s domain and it would take several years for her to regain her… dahlia bed, is it, or the herbaceous border?” He teased but allowed the truth to intrude. More than any change to the hotel’s interior, alterations to the garden indicated it would take time and not just money and labor to return to the previous incarnation. He was unconvinced that any of them would be able to return to the way things were, but from his brief encounter with Mrs. Green at the ball, he suspected she would make an impressive effort.

“I agree—that is why I asked her permission first. And this was not the dahlia bed—she had the snapdragons here,” Mary said, as smugly as she could manage with dimples.

“Mary!” he exclaimed.

“Ah, it is Mary now, not Molly. If I am not careful, soon you will relapse entirely and I will be the Baroness again, I fear.”

“Mar-, Molly, you know that is not so,” he began, “I just am trying to imagine your… visit with Mrs. Green? How— that is, I cannot picture it, the two of you at tea?” He could not envision the meeting of the two, both so correct, yet poles apart. He would have thought it beyond Mary to set foot into the home of slave-owners, let alone to ask permission to dig up the garden the Union Army had already requisitioned. And yet… Mary had proven to be unpredictable, extreme in some ways, so proper in others. She handled all manner of medical procedures with aplomb and had set up her clinic for the prostitutes but she maintained the greatest physical reserve with the healthiest patients and would scold for obscenity. His insight into her application of her principles was still imperfect.

“Jedediah, you are right. The garden is Mrs. Green’s province in a way the hotel is not. I intend for this planting to last us the duration of the War and every day, its conclusion recedes from us. There are so many more treatments, so much suffering we could relieve if we had more than whiskey and morphine… with the right herbs—the men, all of them, they need this. I, I need this, I need to know I, we did everything we could and it is so easy, but it is also easy to ask,” she broke off, her playfulness replaced with earnestness.

“Molly, I would very much like to hear this story but perhaps on the veranda?” He gestured with a tilt of his head to its shaded deck.

“I must finish this planting first or the meeting will have served no purpose and the story itself will be irrelevant,” she replied.

“Well, then, shall I help you?” There were worse things than planting the scatter of seeds, the damp roots, in this rich earth. He thought of the kitchen garden he grew up with and the wide fields of his childhood.

“I think not. I have a method and the work will go more quickly if I follow it. But,” she smiled, “You may join me and spare me a crick in my neck.”

“Well, then, I will be the idle Grasshopper to your industrious Ant and simply loafe here,” he acceded, not at all distressed to be able to recline on a patch of green lawn next to her, the afternoon like molten honey around them. Dragonflies sailed the currents of the sky and bees continued their ever-tenuous victory against gravity. “So, how was your visit with Mrs. Green?”

Mary paused, considering. “I think, I think she was everything a gracious Southern matron is supposed to be. Her manners are exquisite and her home is a sanctuary of elegant repose. I think,” she reached for a small seedling, nestled it in a hollow, and tucked its swaddle of soil around it, “I think she understands. She is a realist, she knows how things are at the moment but she can imagine how they might be. I would not want to face her on a field of battle—she is a fierce strategist. But she is accustomed to maneuvers against gentleman, not another woman, and she did not anticipate I would see what she was doing. She is proud and she is afraid.” She reached for the next seedling, not slowed in her movements by her contemplative assessment.

“Go on,” he said, enjoying her careful evaluation and also the neat way her hands moved through the earth. She had her cuffs turned back but she moved too swiftly for him to see how well she had healed from her encounter with Private Lightfoot. 

“Mrs. Green knows that she must manage both how things appear and how they truly are—she must do both to the best of her ability, planning for every contingency, while wishing for one outcome: the victory of the South. She did not strike me as an unusually cruel woman and Emma, that is, Miss Green’s demeanor and commitment to the Confederate boys would suggest she’s been raised by a moral woman, someone capable of compassion. I suspect Mrs. Green wishes for victory not because she is terribly invested in slavery or because she feels her… people, are so much less than she is, but because she wishes a return to the order she knew before. That it should require the enslavement of an entire race troubles her little though I cannot say it doesn’t trouble her at all. Just as she sees her… people as less, so their distress is less and consequently less worth considering than her son’s future career or her daughters’ marriages.”

Jed had not expected Mary to have such a measured view of Mrs. Green. He knew little of the woman, but Mary’s evaluation seemed sound. He wondered how she had turned her appraisal to her purpose.

“So, how did you negotiate the garden?” he asked.

“With a great deal of politesse, and the intimation that it would do for the Union senior officers to understand her thoughtfulness while she might convey to her own neighbors the benefit it would be for the Confederate soldiers. I made it clear that the medicines derived would be used equally, as every patient at Mansion House receives care,” she gave a sidelong glance, “And I also sought her advice about the best source for seeds, which herbs I might find wild to harvest myself. She was satisfied she could turn this development to her purpose and also that she was my superior—so satisfied, she gave me cuttings from her kitchen garden. Emma, that is, Miss Green, did appear a bit… surprised when she came upon us in the parlor. I suspect she wished to create a diversion to rescue me, but I managed my own escape as I had planned. And that is the last of it,” she said, with a firm pat to the little hillock before her.

“Oh, sweet Molly! You are never the damsel in distress!” he laughed. She was so clever but her schemes were all benevolence.

“Well, Jedediah, to be fair—I am not sure how attached Mrs. Green was to this patch of snapdragons to begin with and I do think she enjoyed the idea that I would spend the afternoon sweltering and ruining my complexion. It was Emma who caught me before I left to give me her old gardening hat. So, you should thank her I am not red as a boiled lobster or speckled like an egg,” She made a soft sound of amusement in her throat.

Mary settled down on her knees, hand drifting through the longer grass at the edge of the garden bed. He shifted closer, reached out and took her hand in his. They would need to go in very soon; she was still flushed and he could see the dark patches of sweat between her shoulder blades, black on the indigo cotton. Still, he took her hand and turned it, the swelling gone, but the bruises still livid on her fair skin. He stroked them with his thumb and thought of the kisses he had placed there. He moved to pull her hand to his mouth for more when she resisted.

“No, Jed—I’m all dirty,” she demurred, making to withdraw her hand. Was this finally feminine vanity or something else? He weakened his grasp but did not entirely release her hand, making it clear he was only offering, would only ever offer and never take. He still felt the curdle of shame when he remembered the kiss he forced from her in his illness; her hand still bore evidence of the last sick man who had forced and taken and been forgiven—but he would not be that man, not ever again. 

“That is a matter of opinion, dearest, but your opinion. I would never, I’ll never again just take anything--” he said. He was compelled to make it clear to her that he saw his love for her as a reservoir but never an obligation. Her hand, nails rimmed with earth, soil in the lacework creases of her palm, still rested in his.

“I know you wouldn’t—it’s just, I am all dirty, a mess, you cannot want,” she broke off. He was surprised at the transition from confidence to avoidance. There was something she was waiting to hear, he gleaned, though he had thought he had said everything already. Clearly, that was not the case.

“I assure you, Molly, my Molly, I do want—I want you in every way, proper and improper,” he paused, considering the response in her eyes. They were a curious mixture of embarrassed and intrigued, and he saw he hadn’t offended her. He allowed himself to cross a line, knowing he would only use words, “I want you dirty and I want you fresh from your bath, sweetheart—at least, you must always know that—how much, all, I want,” he ended, voice low. He must let her respond as she would and trust her to know for herself what was best.

She moved then to stand, wordlessly, her eyes opaque to him. He rose with her, uneasy, wondering if he had said it wrong, if even the articulation of his position was a problem. He would have to make amends, he was thinking, when she stumbled a bit; she had knelt much longer than he and she had the look of a wilted lily. He began to worry more about heat exhaustion—she had taken so few precautions. She faltered and he moved to hold her more firmly at the upper arm, his touch less personal. Dr. Foster began to intrude. She turned then and turned into him, the length of her against his side. He felt her lean into him, the boundary lost between her soft breasts and his ribs, the violin curve of her hip firm against his thigh. She was smaller than he was, but was tall enough for her mouth to whisper against his ear.

“I think you have wandered my dreams then, my darling,” her voice was the softest sound he had ever heard, “Every night, they promise such… such an end to longing.” As if it were a dream now, he felt her lips on his neck where his beard ended and the flesh was bare and warm from the sun. Once, twice—then she tasted him, the stroke of her tongue against his carotid, moved away with after a final acknowledging nudge of her nose to his jaw. He felt entirely grounded yet he soared. 

She broke the moment for them, stepped aside yet left her hand on his arm to walk up to the veranda. She spoke quietly at first, then more cheerfully about what she had planted—boneset, comfrey, foxglove, calendula, mint.

“I don’t expect the mint will be especially useful as a medicine, but it grows so easily and it smells so pleasant. I suppose we can use it to settle stomachs upset by the morphine,” she said as they climbed the few stairs to the wide porch. “Mrs. Green gave me peppermint and apple mint—she suggested pennyroyal for the border to keep the insects away.” He gestured for her to sit in one of the bentwood rockers while he went inside to retrieve a pitcher of ginger switchel and two tumblers.

He was relieved when he was able to make his way to the kitchen and back with only one or two brief interruptions. He felt, rather than saw, Matron Brannan’s speculative gaze but she generally had a sweet spot for him and made no comment. He was able to address a nun’s question about a dressing change without even breaking his stride and felt blessed that there had been no encounter, not even the far-off shrill of Hastings. When he returned to the veranda, he found Mary as he had left her in the rocking chair but saw that she had fallen asleep. The garden hat was barely clasped in her hand, its brim brushing the wide planks. Her other hand lay in her lap, palm upwards and her head was tilted slightly to one side. He placed the glasses and pitcher on a small side table, then bent to remove the hat from her hand. He found her pulse at the same time and reassured himself that her heartbeat was steady, that she was only asleep and not in a faint from sunstroke. He supposed she had been up since daybreak and had had a full day with her regular work interrupted by her visit to the Greens’ home and the extra errands attendant to her gardening. He placed the hat carefully on another chair and wondered how easily he could get Miss Green to help him replace the worn ribbon at the crown. He thought of Mary in her garden, the long streamers trailing down her back, iris-blue like the ball-gown she’d ruined the night Aurelia nearly died.

She sighed softly in her sleep and he thought she might be dreaming. He thought of her words in his ear and he thought of the letter lying on his desk, its envelope sealed. He wondered whether he should try again, if another draft would mean better words in a better order; he thought not, best to send what he had. It was likely there would need to be many letters if he and Eliza were to reach the resolution he hoped for. He could not be sure she would agree but her actions reflected geographically what had been true for so long emotionally; they were estranged. Should they go through life, each tethered to another yet without any of the consolation of intimacy? Eliza had seemed to wish for a new life even before he took his commission; perhaps his letter, his request would grant her a boon she dared not ask for. He was not sure there was any etiquette to follow but it had been his responsibility to propose and so now, his to dissolve?

He looked again at Mary and wondered what she dreamt. His dreams were both mundane—Mary at the table or sewing in the evening, head bent in a book with elaborate German script—and licentious. Mary in her bath, her hair streaming down her naked back, Mary struggling to get in or out of her stays, Mary in his bed, sheets tangled at her ankles, bare, all entrancing light except for places of even more enticing shadow. He considered telling her of the letter and his hopes. He knew she would urge him to it, would say the burden was better shared, but he was not so sure. She had no context for Eliza and no way to measure the anticipation. If Eliza refused… He could hardly approach the thought but knew as time passed, he would accept the rejection and would need to find some other path. But all that time, the waiting would poison them both and the War itself already made some days nearly unbearable. He could not risk Mary’s suffering, not for such a long time, when he might forestall it in part or entire.

When she woke, he would give her the drink and ask her more questions about the garden. She had indicated she had more plantings in mind and tinctures and tisanes to prepare. There would be bottling and distillation to arrange and she might request another cupboard for a drying closet, where bundles of herbs would dangle overhead and spread the fragrance of a hot day through the growing cold of autumn and winter’s depth. Later, he would mail the letter and wait for a response alone. He had her companionship in so many other spheres. They were both already east of Eden, but he could spare her, perhaps, some little pain. All his wars had taught him that was sometimes more than could be hoped for. In the distance, the light gleamed lower in the trees, the Morse code flash of the cherubim’s sword.

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, thanks to Emily Dickinson for the title. There are obvious Biblical allusions in this one though only apple-mint. All the herbs mentioned did have medicinal use, some more powerful than other (foxglove is the source of digitalis, a cardiac medicine). I considered letting Mary and Jed drink shrub but I thought it would be confusing to write about in the context of a garden, so I gave them switchel, as there was no Southern sweet tea for years yet.
> 
> Switchel, also switzel, swizzle, ginger-water, haymaker's punch or switchy, is a drink made of water mixed with vinegar, and often seasoned with ginger. Honey, sugar, brown sugar, or maple syrup were sometimes used to sweeten the drink instead of molasses.
> 
> I included a little Emmry for those so inclined and a few other call-backs and requests are scattered through-- seek and ye shall find.


End file.
